CARLSBAD -- Visitors flocked to Carlsbad Caverns National Park and Guadalupe Mountains National Park last year.

Data released by the National Parks Service showed that the two national parks that provide tourism dollars to Carlsbad continued an upward trend that has been mostly positive for the last five years.

The Caverns, especially, had a significant increase in visitors, going from 396,877 in 2014 to 440,999 in 2015, according to numbers from the park.

That increase came even with the elevators being out of service for the last few months of the year.

"We've had really good visitation," Valerie Gohlke, public affairs specialist at the park, said. "People are not hesitating to hike in and out of the cave."

Gohlke said numbers for 2016 are also looking good so far.

The boost can also be attributed to new park programs like "Every Kid in a Park," "Find Your Park" media campaign and lower gas prices. Gohlke also said the National Park Service increased advertising in anticipation for the 2016 centennial of the service.

The park service is partly crediting the National Park Foundation's "Find Your Park" campaign with the record number of total visitors to national parks in 2015.

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Shown is the last five years of visitation from two area national parks.(Photo: Maddy Hayden - Current-Argus)

According to a news release from the park service, 305 million people visited national parks in 2015, up four percent from the previous record, 292.8 million visitors in 2014.

Although not as pronounced, Guadalupe Mountains National Park also showed a decent-sized increase.

Attendance was the highest it has been in five years at 169,535. That's up from 166,868 in 2014.

Guadalupe Mountains National Park Chief of Interpretation Elizabeth Jackson said she credited her park's increased social media presence, in addition to the impending centennial celebrations, to the increase in visitors.

"We really promoted fall colors earlier this year," Jackson said. "We put up a fall colors website and we also had a really long color expression."

As for 2016, Jackson said visitor numbers are "holding steady," and are beginning to show the warmer temperatures.

"We've had pretty steady camping groups because the weather has been moderate," she said. "People are starting to venture out again now that the weather is getting nice."

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Visitors to Carlsbad Caverns National Park listen as a park ranger speaks at the Visitor Center.(Photo: Maddy Hayden - Current-Argus)